New Hampshire Law Students Take On RIAA 173
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "We have recently learned that another law school legal aid clinic has joined the fight against the RIAA. Student attorneys from the Consumer and Commercial Law Clinic
of the Franklin Pierce Law Center in Concord, New Hampshire, working under law school faculty supervision, are representing
a lady targeted by the RIAA in UMG Recording v. Roy in New Hampshire. The case is scheduled for trial next Fall. That makes at least 4 law schools providing anti-RIAA defense services: University of Maine,
University of San Francisco, Franklin Pierce, and, most recently, Harvard. Hopefully many
more will follow. One commentator theorizes that this news 'will ... [encourage] professors and students at other law schools to take on hitherto defenseless people being pilloried by the corporate music industry.'"
Not mainstream yet. (Score:2, Interesting)
Why?... (Score:5, Interesting)
*And, really, it doesn't matter if the students being targeted were guilty. In our society, everyone deserves legal representation, even the guilty. Right or wrong, it's just how our system works. The law departments view shouldn't have been "this person is obviously innocent - we should get involved and help them". It should have been "these cases are high profile cases that will involve a lot of complex legal issues and will teach our law students a lot of valuable lessons that will make them better lawyers in the future. We should be involved." In my opinion, of course...
"Free" as in beer High profile Trainning! (Score:2, Interesting)
Great, now this law schools are really delivering what they promise. High profile, real case of study against mayor law firms.
Lots of legal battles to teach their students the ways of the corporate warfare...
They students not only will have Harvard Law Student in their resume, also RIAA legal case.
For the fee this universities collect, they have found a new way to train legal sharks...
I should patent this "field training from school active model" :D
Re:Awesome (Score:1, Interesting)
Agreed, but why just cases vs RIAA? Sure there are public defenders, but I'd love to see more law schools helping those who end up on the wrong side of a major corporation or corporate lobby group. Being part of a class or group that helped set a precedent through a landmark case would look good on your resume, as a lawyer-to-be.
Re:Its Standardized Education (Score:5, Interesting)
Good law schools should really take advantage of this opportunity. I think schools could be judged by this for how up to date they are and how much they really care about their lawyers getting real experience in the classroom.
I agree, and Franklin Pierce happens to be one of those institutions that really cares about getting its students real-world, law-practice, experience [piercelaw.edu].
Re:Awesome (Score:5, Interesting)
And when you DON'T need a lawyer, you still need to pay a lawyer! Because they write laws that ensure that they get paid even when you don't need them.
(I needed some work done reg. my immigration and I approached a friend of mine who works as a paralegal. Even though the work was trivial and she was more than capable of doing it, she told me that it was illegal for her to do that as she was not a lawyer.)
Re:Why?... (Score:3, Interesting)
They took this long because despite what most believe, universities are exceptionally political. They have been targeted by RIAA in the past and did not want to lose potentially millions in legal fees at a time when enrollment is dropping due to rising costs. Ethical discourse is a luxury that few universities can afford right now; As you might notice, all of the universities to date have been financially well-off.
As to the position the law departments' take, I would point out that they are under no ethical obligation to represent a person based on presumed guilt or innocence. Most practitioners of law are doing so to make money, and pick and choose who they represent based on how much income can be derived from a case. The issue of innocence or guilt has no bearing on the decision to (or not to) represent someone. And besides, you don't want a lawyer who presumes one way or another, you want a lawyer who will argue your side to the best of his/her abilities.
Re:Why?... (Score:5, Interesting)
Part of the problem is stigma. Let's say there was a high-profile child pornography ring in the city where the university is. Under the concept of "everyone deserves representation", shouldn't the law school assemble an army of lawyers to help out in the defense of the accused?
No, they wouldn't because the local (and maybe national) press would utterly crucify the school, the professors and the students.
Now, the RIAA is interesting because the battle is clearly over the University's rights to shield their students, no matter what the students do. In a lot of ways, the University may be right that they can shield the students and are not required to expend any resources on the behalf of the RIAA attempting to track down the students. It might even be that all the students were doing is covered by fair use. However, it is highly likely that the student's activities are in fact infringing on copyrights and shielding them isn't a great policy.
The one problem is that no matter how "wrong" the students may be, forcing the University to do anything at all in support of a lawsuit against the students would seem to be an unpopular move.
And besides, everyone that knows how is downloading stuff today. Free has won the day and paying for digital stuff is unlikely to ever come back into favor.
Re:Remember, kids! (Score:3, Interesting)
Indeed P2P is a great threat to all creators that use a digital medium. It is simple - I and everyone else on the Internet has a choice now. We can consume for free, or we can consume and pay. It is a simple and obvious choice.
I can choose to pay for what I download. I can use many different "stores" to make purchases. But at the same time, perhaps with even greater breadth of products to choose from, I can just take for free. Most of the people I know that are Internet-savvy are taking without paying. There doesn't seem to be any clear consequence to them why they would choose to pay.
There is no "download for free and pay later" option. How many times does the average person read a book or watch a movie? Once? Twice? OK, so now you have read it or seen it. Why would you ever, ever in your entire lifetime pay for the opportunity to do so again.
So I would say P2P is clearly harmful to content creators. If content is available in digital form, it is available today on the Internet for free. Sure, there may be greater familiarity with some content creators and it might mean that I would seek out there other works in the future. But if it is available for free, why would I ever pay for it?
Now this looks like a perfect world, as long as you aren't hoping for revenue from digital content. I do not see this going back to a "pay" model anytime soon, if ever.
Re:Awesome (Score:5, Interesting)
My cousin is a bad lawyer under category (c) "Lawyers who you know are bad because you know them". The stories he proudly tells about using courtroom dirty tricks are astounding. One of my favorites is the "jar of marbles". He currently works for a large hotel chain defending them against suits brought by workers they've cheated. In one case, the suit alleged that the hotel would only promote white men to management. He argued that the fact that all management was white men could be pure chance. He produced a jar of marbles that were 10% black and 90% white and said "is it not possible to reach into this jar and, by chance, pull twenty marbles and not pull one black one, just by chance?" The plaintiff's attorney objeted at this bullshit and the objection was sustained, and the jury told to disregard that little bit of irrelevantr statistics; but (as he proudly related) "I kept that jar of marbles on the defense table, right where the jury could see it, for the whole trial--- and we won". Even if it was lack of evidence that caused him to prevail, the fact that he is proud of that marble shit just goes to show what kind of dickhead tends to become a lawyer--- or maybe, what kind of dickhead becoming a lawyer tends to turn you into.
Re:Remember, kids! (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm most saddened when I see artists give in to the brainwashing the music executives do to them and come out against it.
Most performers today totally get it... and can't wait for their recording agreement commitments to be over.
Re:Why?... (Score:2, Interesting)